‘You’re only making matters worse for yourself,’ said Haight. ‘I always thought you were quite a sensible boy.’

‘He’s a murderer and a thief,’ said James.

‘You do not know the first thing about me,’ said Ugo.

‘I know that you’re not really a count,’ said James. ‘That you’re just a goatherd from the Barbagia.’

‘Bond!’ shouted Haight. ‘Any more of this backchat and you are going to be in serious trouble. Count Ugo is a very great man.’

James gave a little snort of laughter. Ugo was staring at him angrily, chewing his lower lip like a petulant child.

‘I may have been born in these mountains,’ he said ‘but I changed myself. I made myself better than these local scum.’ He thumped his chest. ‘One day the whole world will know of my glory.’

‘Oh, yes, that’s right,’ said James. ‘You’re going to build an empire, with the help of schoolmasters, criminals and shepherds in fancy dress, marching around in purple toy-soldier outfits.’

Haight’s face was pale with fury. ‘This is not acceptable behaviour, James,’ he said.

‘I’ll write it out a hundred times, shall I, sir?’ said James. ‘“I shall not be rude to murderers.”’

‘I warn you, Bond,’ said Haight. ‘Any more of your insolence and you’ll regret it.’

‘This is worse than school,’ said James and Haight slapped him hard in the face. James started to bleed from a wound he’d got falling face first on to the roof. He put a hand up to stop the flow.

‘I used to quite like you, Mister Haight,’ he said.

‘Look here,’ said Haight, softening his voice. ‘There’s no need for all this unpleasantness. We don’t have to punish you. If you’ll just tell us who helped you tonight, we can forget all about this. What do you say, hmm?’

‘Nobody helped me,’ said James, and Smiler rasped something in Latin.

James obviously wasn’t meant to understand any of it, but he recognised one word – occide, meaning kill.

Haight replied, also in Latin, and the two of them argued for a while.

James shivered. These were the two voices he’d heard in Eton that night, as he hung in the ivy. Smiler and Haight. Smiler with his harsh, fluent delivery and Haight with his stiff English pronunciation.

It was Ugo who brought the argument to a halt, deliberately speaking English so that James would understand. ‘You cannot kill him yet, Smiler,’ he said. ‘We must first find out who helped him and how he knew where the girl was.’

‘I’ve already told you,’ said James wearily. ‘Nobody helped me.’

‘James Bond,’ said Ugo, ‘I am a reasonable man. But I do not like things to be… messy.’

James pictured Mauro, carefully picking urchin spines out of his foot and his temper flared up again.